Bitcoin Is Below Every Moving Average at $78,200 — but 67% of Traders Are Still Long: 5 Levels That Decide the Midterm Week

Bitcoin is trading at about $78,200 on Monday, November 2, 2026 — below every single short- and medium-term moving average — while 67.3% of tracked traders are still long. That contradiction is the whole trade this week: the price says sellers are in control, the positioning says most traders are betting the other way, and the U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, plus Apple earnings and Friday's jobs report, will force one side to blink. Here is what the data actually says, the five levels that decide the week, and the checklist to use before you act.

Start with the blunt fact. On Binance spot in the early hours of November 2, Bitcoin printed $78,207.19, sitting beneath its 7-day simple moving average of $78,822, its 20-day average of $80,688, and its 50-day average of $82,009. The 12-period exponential average at $79,465 and the 26-period average at $80,599 were overhead too. Every average a short-term trader watches had flipped from support to resistance. The only structural counterweight was the 200-day average at $73,212, roughly $5,000 below the price — a floor that matters for the long-term trend but offers no shelter if the intermediate trend keeps deteriorating.

The session itself told the same story of a market going nowhere with conviction. Bitcoin gained just 0.26% across a 24-hour range of $77,620 to $78,878 on Binance spot volume of about $597 million, finishing almost exactly where it started and below the daily pivot of $78,235.07. Other desks measured the same compression differently but reached the same conclusion: one model put the odds of a drift lower inside a $75,469 to $80,518 band over the next two to three days at 75%, with only a 25% chance of an upside breakout. Compression like this does not last. A normal session's movement — the 14-day average true range is about $1,880 — is wider than the entire corridor between strong support and strong resistance, so a single ordinary day can touch both edges.

Why Bitcoin fell here in the first place

Bitcoin did not drift to $78,000 in a vacuum. Last week, hackers stole a record $6.3 billion from Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, in a breach the FBI has formally attributed to North Korea's TraderTraitor group. Binance has since said it has covered around 95% of the stolen funds, and on Sunday it reopened withdrawals in phases, processing $4.65 billion of withdrawals against $1.01 billion of deposits — a net outflow of $3.64 billion, or about 2.1% of its assets. The exchange said withdrawals were stabilising after the initial spike and deposit volumes had remained steady, a claim worth watching rather than taking on faith: a bank run that ends at 2.1% is a vote of confidence, but the money that left has not come back yet.

At the same time, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $643 million on Friday, October 30 — their largest daily outflow since June, according to Farside Investors data cited by CoinDesk — erasing four days of inflows. That is the institutional side of the same risk-off move: the Nasdaq had just suffered a 2% weekly drop, the dollar index fell to 101.45–101.63, its lowest in a month, and Bitcoin fell to a six-week low on Friday before stabilising. Ether, for context, rose about 1.3% to roughly $2,291–$2,296 on Monday after sliding to a two-month trough last week. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index lost 1.9%, and CoinMarketCap's altcoin season index fell to 46 out of 100 from a pre-hack high of 60. Risk appetite did not rotate into altcoins; it left crypto altogether.

None of this means Bitcoin is broken. It means the recovery so far is a stabilisation, not a reversal — and the difference matters for anyone deciding whether to buy this dip.

The crowded-long problem: what most traders get wrong

Here is the number that should worry bulls more than any moving average. On Binance futures, 67.3% of tracked accounts were long against 32.7% short on November 2 — a long-to-short ratio of 2.06. Yet the one-hour taker buy/sell ratio was 0.8342: market-order buy volume of 1,324 units ran below sell volume of 1,587 units. In plain language, most traders are positioned long, but the traders actually hitting the market with orders are selling.

That combination is a classic trap. When the book is long-heavy but executed flow leans toward selling, stop-loss clusters inside that long cohort become fuel: if price drifts toward those stops, forced selling can accelerate a decline that fundamentals alone would not have caused. Binance futures open interest stood at 95,433.72 contracts — about $7.52 billion in notional value — up just 0.75% in 24 hours, while overall crypto futures volume jumped 56% to $111.8 billion with open interest barely changed at $137.1 billion. Volume without new open interest means churn, not conviction: old positions changing hands, not fresh money arriving. CoinDesk's read was identical for spot majors — Bitcoin volume up 37% and Ether volume up 83%, with open interest flat in both. No new money came in.

The options market tells the same cautious story from the other side. On Deribit, the three most traded Bitcoin options in the last 24 hours were all puts, led by the $58,000 put expiring November 27 — far below the current price of about $78,000. Nobody buys that strike because they expect $58,000 this month; they buy it as cheap disaster insurance. But the fact that disaster insurance is the most popular trade in the market tells you how traders are really positioned, whatever they say on social media. Prediction-market odds compiled by Derive put the chance of Bitcoin above $90,000 by December 25 at just 14%, and above $80,000 at 44%. The market is not pricing a heroic year-end rally. It is pricing a grind.

So the common reading — "Bitcoin is oversold, so it must bounce" — gets it half wrong. Momentum is weak, but it is not yet washed out, and that distinction is exactly what separates a tradeable bounce from a falling knife.

Are the indicators oversold? Not quite — and that matters

The 14-period relative strength index (RSI) on November 2 sat at 38.94 — below the neutral midpoint of 50, but well above the conventional oversold floor of 30. One vendor's read put it at 37.70 the day before, another at about 40 on Monday; the exact print varies by feed, but every version agrees: bearish momentum, not exhaustion. The stochastic oscillator leaned further toward exhaustion, with %K at 21.95 and %D at 17.56, both below 20, and Bollinger Band %B at 0.1611 put Bitcoin just 16% of the way from the lower band ($77,027) toward the upper band ($84,349) — far closer to the lower edge than to the 20-day midpoint of $80,688. The MACD remained in negative territory on the daily chart, and one systematic model rated MACD as a strong sell with ADX also signalling sell.

Read together, the indicators describe a market that has sold off enough to look tired but not enough to be capitulating. That is why the honest technical call is conditional, not heroic: a bounce is plausible from the lower band, but it needs a trigger — a reclaim of a moving average, a bullish catalyst from the election or earnings, or a genuine inflow — before it deserves to be called a reversal. Traders who buy every RSI dip in a downtrend usually learn this lesson with their own money. The data this week says: wait for the reclaim, not the feeling.

There is one genuine counterweight, and it is worth stating fairly. Friday's decline stalled against key support near $76,052, where the 100-day moving average and the 38.2% retracement of the rally from the July 1 low converged. Buyers defended that zone, and the weekend recovery ran to about $78,740 before rotating back down. Support held once. Whether it holds a second time, with the midterms hours away, is the week's real question.

Five levels that decide the midterm week

Different desks publish slightly different levels because they use different feeds and windows. The structure, however, is consistent across all of them, and the levels below combine the published prints into one usable map. Treat them as zones, not laser lines: a brief wick through a level means little, but a daily close beyond one changes the story.

• First upside hurdle near $78,850: immediate resistance from the November 2 structure, just above the daily pivot of $78,235. Reclaiming it would put Bitcoin back above its shortest averages and ease the immediate bearish pressure.
• Second upside hurdle near $79,120 to $79,490: the cluster of October 24 and October 26 swing lows, the falling 200-hour moving average, and the stronger resistance print of $79,493. A close above this zone is the first real evidence buyers have regained control.
• Third upside hurdle near $80,300 to $80,700: the 50-day exponential average at $80,307 and the 20-day simple average near $80,688. This is the line the recovery must cross to turn from a bounce into a trend change; above it, the path opens toward the $85,000 horizontal resistance where sellers previously emerged.
• First downside support near $77,590 to $77,830: immediate support at $77,592 and the 100-day exponential average at $77,831. Losing this zone on a daily close would confirm sellers still control the short term and put Friday's defended low back in play.
• Second downside support near $76,970 to $76,050: the stronger floor at $76,977, then the converged support at $76,052 (100-day average plus 38.2% retracement). Below that, attention shifts to the September lows near $74,925 and the 200-day average near $73,161–$73,212 — the last structural floor before a much deeper correction conversation begins.

The invalidation levels are what make this map tradeable. Bulls are wrong on a daily close below $76,977; bears are wrong on a daily close above $79,493. Everything between those two lines is noise, and most of this week's price action will probably live inside it.

Bull, base and bear: three scenarios for November

The base case deserves the most weight, not because it is exciting but because it matches every input at once: compressed price, flat open interest, put-heavy options flow, and a market waiting on three separate catalysts (elections Tuesday, Apple earnings, jobs data Friday) rather than one. Range traders can work the edges of that box; trend traders should wait for a close outside it. Anyone promising certainty before Tuesday's votes are counted is selling something, not analysing something.

What this week actually hinges on

Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections are the nearest catalyst, and the honest truth is that nobody can tell you today which outcome helps Bitcoin most — the market's direction after November 3 remains uncertain in every serious preview, and the election's effect will run through regulation and risk appetite rather than through crypto alone. What is knowable is the calendar: a packed week also features central bank decisions in Britain, Australia, Norway and Sweden, Apple earnings after the bell, and Friday's U.S. jobs report. Add Brent crude falling about 4% to around $109 after signals that Washington wants to resolve the Iran war peacefully, and Nasdaq-100 futures up 0.8% after a 2% weekly drop, and the picture is a market trying to decide whether last week's sell-off was a shock to buy or a trend to respect.

The regulatory backdrop cuts both ways and deserves more attention than the hourly chart. Washington's crypto agenda for the next two years will be carried mostly by the SEC, the CFTC and other agencies, following the GENIUS Act — the first federal stablecoin statute — and the SEC's Regulation Crypto framework, while Congress debates a broader market-structure bill. That slow, agency-led path tends to produce grinding, headline-driven volatility rather than single explosive moves: good for range traders, frustrating for anyone waiting for one decisive catalyst. Meanwhile, Circle's October 20 comment letter asking the SEC to treat qualifying payment stablecoins as cash, with the broker-dealer haircut cut from 2% to zero, is a reminder that the plumbing of tokenised markets is still being negotiated — a policy position, not a decision, and one more reason not to trade rumours as if they were rules.

For longer-term holders, the context beyond this week is less dramatic than the hourly chart suggests. Bitcoin still holds above its 200-day average near $73,200, still commands roughly 60% of a $2.6 trillion crypto market, and is still down about 35% from its October 2025 all-time high near $107,662 in euro terms — a deep drawdown, but one that has happened before in Bitcoin's history without ending the asset. The question for November is narrower: does the market reclaim $80,300, or does the crowded long book finally flush toward $73,000? Both remain live outcomes, and position sizing should reflect that, not a prediction.

Checklist: before you buy, sell or hold this week

• Check the daily close, not the wick: only a close above $79,493 or below $76,977 changes the technical story; intraday spikes through those lines are noise.
• Watch ETF flows before price: Friday's $643 million outflow erased four days of inflows — a second heavy outflow day would confirm institutions are still de-risking.
• Watch Binance flows, not headlines: deposits returning toward the $4.65 billion withdrawn would signal confidence; continued net outflows would signal the opposite.
• Watch the taker ratio, not the long count: a long-heavy book means little while market-order sellers dominate; a flip in taker flow would be an early bullish tell.
• Size for the range: with a $1,880 average daily range, a stop placed $500 from entry is a coin flip — size positions for the $76,977–$79,493 box, not for a quiet market.
• Keep savings off exchanges: after a $6.3 billion hack, the safest place for coins you do not plan to trade is a wallet you control — our guides explain how to store crypto safely and where crypto is safe after the Binance hack.
• Do not trade the election on margin: volatility around results, earnings and jobs data in one week is exactly when crowded positions get liquidated.

If you are new to Bitcoin entirely, start with the basics before the leverage: what Bitcoin is and how it works, how to buy Bitcoin as a beginner, and an honest look at whether Bitcoin is a good investment in 2026. And if you still trade on exchanges, read how exchanges rank after the Binance hack and the five tests for whether your crypto is safe on Binance now before moving funds.

Frequently asked questions

Is Bitcoin oversold at $78,200?

Not yet by the standard measures. The 14-period RSI near 39 is below neutral but above the oversold threshold of 30, while the stochastic oscillator below 20 suggests selling is tired but not exhausted. Oversold is a condition, not a buy signal — it needs a reclaim of resistance to confirm.

What is the most important Bitcoin level this week?

Two levels frame everything: $79,493 above (a daily close there favours bulls) and $76,977 below (a daily close there favours bears). Between them, price action is range noise. The 50-day average near $80,300 is the bigger trend prize above.

Why are so many traders long if Bitcoin keeps falling?

Because positioning and execution tell different stories. About 67% of tracked accounts are long, but taker sellers outnumbered taker buyers (ratio 0.8342) in the observed window. Longs built during the recovery are now trapped under resistance, and their stop-losses could accelerate any break lower.

Could Bitcoin fall to $58,000?

The $58,000 November 27 put was the most traded Deribit option, but that reflects cheap disaster insurance, not a forecast — prediction markets put Bitcoin above $90,000 by December 25 at just 14%. A fall to $58,000 would require losing the 200-day average near $73,200 first, which would be a major trend break, not a routine dip.

Do the midterm elections decide Bitcoin's price?

Not by themselves. Elections move regulation expectations and overall risk appetite, and this week they arrive alongside Apple earnings, Friday's jobs report and several central bank decisions. The election is the nearest catalyst, but the data releases around it will matter just as much.

Should I buy the dip at $78,000?

That depends on your horizon and risk tolerance, and this article is not financial advice. Short-term traders should wait for a daily close above $79,493 or buy only at range support with a stop below $76,977. Long-term buyers who believe in Bitcoin's thesis have historically done better accumulating in tranches than betting everything on one level — and keeping holdings in self-custody rather than on an exchange.

Conclusion

Bitcoin enters midterm week in an uncomfortable but legible position: below every short-term average, defended once at $76,052, crowded with longs, and priced by the options market for a grind rather than a moonshot. The most likely path is a choppy range between $76,977 and $79,493 until Tuesday's votes, Apple earnings and Friday's jobs data give the market a reason to choose. The levels are clear, the invalidation points are clear, and the data to watch — ETF flows, Binance deposits, taker flow — is public. Trade the levels, not the noise, and let the daily close, not the hourly spike, tell you when the story has actually changed. Sources for the market data in this article include CoinDesk's November 2 markets coverage, Reuters via Kitco, Blockchain.News technical data, InvestingLive's support analysis and Invezz's recovery coverage.